MISSING FOR TEN YEARS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21772, 11 October 1932, Page 16

MISSING FOR TEN YEARS

BROOCH CLUE TO IDENTITY. The skeleton remains of a woman found buried on the foreshore at Lepe, near Calshot, Hampshire, on July 12. were definitely identified on July 18 as those of Miss Florence Annie Smith, aged 49, who lived at Putney. Miss Smith was reported to the Metropolitan Police as missing from her home on May 5, 1922. She walked out of the house that morning, and her relatives had never seen nor heard of her since. The solution of the mystery was the outcome of a visit paid to the police station by a sister of the dead woman, who produced a brooch identical with the one found at Lepe. She explained that the brooches were made when Florence and she were bridesmaids at another sister’s wedding. Although Miss Smith disappeared 10 years ago, Dr E. Jones-Evans, at the inquest, expressed the opinion that the body had not lain in its shallow grave —there were only a few inches of earth over the bones—for more than two years. He also said he thought that it had been buried by some human agency.

The sister who identified the remains said that the clothes on the body were different from the garments Florence was wearing when she left home. “ But,” she added, “ we do not know what time elapsed between her leaving here and her death. She may easily have bought fresh clothes.

“The whole thing is a mystery to us, but we do not think it is a case of murder. We think she just wandered about, and probably died from exposure, or was drowned. ' There was certainly nobody who bore he’- any ill-will.”

At the inquest on open verdict was returned.